Help on fixing personal wedding photo.

[LexLuther]

During my recent trip to get married in the caribbean, many photo's were taken with my Rebel which turned out pretty great (if they ended up being in focus) but unfortunately some of the better poses were taken by a resort photographer. The negatives I have are pretty much useless, which leaves me scanning in the 5x7 prints. I'm having a serious problem with color/contrast and I'm not too sure which direction to head in to try and correct it, but I would really appreciate any input people could offer me.

Here is the photo in question.

http://lexluther.shackspace.com/images/Problem-Scan.jpg

I basically scanned it in, and it is a pretty good replica of the original photo. Although I plan on getting a better scanner in the new year, I'm trying to see if I can fix it now. I'm not too worried about the detail, but more of getting rid of the washed out color.

Thanks in advance on any tips.

[Conk]

I took a stab at it myself and here's what I did.
In photoshop, go to the window menu and click on "info" if it is not already checked.
Next, go to image>adjustment>levels. Choose the sample dropper with the negative sign and sample the whitest pixel you can find on the photo. This is where the "info" pallet comes in to play. As you move the sampler around, keep an eye ojn the RGB values. The highest values are the whitest. I found the whitest pixel to be on the white rail. When you click on the whitest pixel, watch the colour of your photo change.

I hope this helps.

[PacAce]

This is what I came up with although I'm not sure how accurate the skin tones are. If this is the kind of fix you were looking for, I can give you a step by step if you are interested.

[Conk]

Originally Posted by PacAce

This is what I came up with although I'm not sure how accurate the skin tones are. If this is the kind of fix you were looking for, I can give you a step by step if you are interested.

Lets hear it anyway.

[LexLuther]

PacAce, that's the only version I've seen that is beginning to look normal. Although you're right in that we were a little more tan in the skin tones. I don't know if supplying a DRebel picture that turned out well from that same day would help or not. Seems all the photo's that were taken under the gazebo were too dark because of lack of fill flash.

If you could give me some hints or links with steps to follow I would greatly be in your debt.

[PacAce]

Originally Posted by LexLuther

PacAce, that's the only version I've seen that is beginning to look normal. Although you're right in that we were a little more tan in the skin tones. I don't know if supplying a DRebel picture that turned out well from that same day would help or not. Seems all the photo's that were taken under the gazebo were too dark because of lack of fill flash.

If you could give me some hints or links with steps to follow I would greatly be in your debt.

LL, if you can provide a good picture with a more accurate skin tone, than I might be able to get a more realistic skin tone for you. Then I'll post a step-by-step you can apply it to you original scan.

[PacAce]

Here is a more straightforward approach to correcting the color of the scanned pictures compared to my first attempt. The problem with the image is that there is a bluish color cast on the image but it is not a global color cast. In other words, the bluish color cast, probably cast by the reflections of the sun from the sea and the surrounding areas, is proportionately distributed about the image depending on the reflectivity of the objects in the image. What this means is that we can not just do a straight color cast correction. If you did, you will notice that the skin tone of the subjects really get messed up. The following is a procedure (Photoshot CS) for applying proportional color cast correction to the image.

1. Create a duplicate layer out of the Backgroung (the original image) and call this layer “Background copy”.

Layer > Duplicate Layer…. Click “OK”.

2. Create new Layer Set called “Set 1”.

Layer > New Layer > New Layer Set. Click “OK”.

3. Drag “Background copy” into “Set 1” so that it becomes a subset of “Set 1”.

4. With “Background copy” layer selected (click on it if it is not), create a new Levels adjustment layer. This is a throw-away adj. layer which we’re going to use just to determine our neutral gray points in the picture.

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. Click “OK”.

5. Click on the middle eyedropper in the lower right-hand side of the Levels dialogue box. Then click within the image at areas you think are neutral gray areas. The area that gives the most natural looking colors overall would be the closest to being neutral. When I did this, I found the top part of the railing on the left side of the image to be neutral. Take note of this point (Red arrow below).



6. Click “Cancel” in the Levels dialogue box since we don’t need it anymore.

7. Select the “Color Sampler Tool” from the “Tools” palette and click on the spot noted in Step 5 above.



The RGB values of that point should be noted in the Info window (circled in RED below). If the Info window is not open, click on Window>Info to open it.



8. Click on the eyedropper (in the RED circle above) and select “Grayscale” from the dropdown menu. Note this grayscale value. Then click on the eyedropper again and change back to “RGB color”.

9. Now the fun begins! With the “Background copy” layer still selected, change the mode to Lab color. Reply “Don’t Flatten” to any prompt that comes up.

Image > Mode > Lab color

10. Switch to the Channels palette and drag the Lightness channel toe the “Create New Channel” icon at the bottom of the palette (on the left of the Garbage can icon). You should now have a new “Lightness copy” channel at the bottom of the channels list.

11. The “Lightness copy” will be used as a mask to do our color correction of the image. But before we use it, we need to adjust the levels on it first.

12. Click on Image > Adjustments > Levels and adjust the Black and White points.



13. Load the “Lightness copy” as a selection.

Select > Load Selection. Set Channel to “Lightness copy” and click “OK”.

14. Click on the “LAB” channel in the Channels palette. Make sure that the “Lightness copy” channel is no longer visible (no Eye icon beside it). If it is, click on the Eye icon to make it invisible.

15. Revert back to RGB color mode. Again, reply “Don’t Flatten” when prompted.

Image > Mode > RGB color

16. Switch back to the Layers palette. “Background copy” should still be selected.

17. Refer back to the Info window and add up the RGB values that was noted in Step 7 above, circled in RED. Divide the sum by 3 to get the average value. In this case, the avg. value is 169.

18. Create a new Levels adjustment layer. We’ll use this layer to correct our colors.

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. Click “OK”.

19. Select the Red from the Channel: dropdown menu in the Levels dialogue window. Adjust the mid-tone slider until the Red value in the Info window changes to 169. This will be the number that is to the right of the slash.



20. Do the same for Green and Blue.

21. Switch the Info window to Grayscale as you did in Step 8 above.

22. Select RGB for the Channel: in the Levels dialogue window and adjust the mid-tone slider until the grayscale value on the right of the slash matches the previous grayscale value (on the left of the slash).

23. Create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation… Click “OK”

24. Adjust the color of the image to your liking. These are the adjustments I made:

Cyans: Saturation = +55, Lightness = -31
Reds: Saturation = -19, Lightness = +3

These adjustments brightened up the sea and toned down the red tink on the skin.

25. When you are satistied with the adjustments, you can flatten all the layers.

Layer > Flatten image.

26. You may now apply the other standard corrections such as contrasts, sharpening, etc.

Before:



After:



NOTE: If I had done a really thorough job on this, I would have selected out the sky in the mask used in Steps 11 through 13 so that the color didn't removed from the blue sky. Since I didn't do that, the sky is paler than I would really like it.

[gail]

well to me they all looked good. But to me that's my opinion is the one that PacAce, did.
It has a more natural look to it. But again as I say they all are good but I just prefer PacAce... I think he did a really great job on it. Merry Christmas to all.

[Conk]

I never posted the work I did as it was my intention you would give it a try yourself. Either way, here is the image after a couple minutes. The only thing I did that isn't explained in the above post is lighten the skin tones somewhat.
I think Pacace did a great job but I just thought that his shirt and her dress had a blue tone to it still. My version does also but I don't think it is as glaring. Also as for the sky, there isn't really much here to recover. It is bright and blown. It could be replaced if someone wanted to go to that extent.

[Conk]

I must have been posting at the same time as Leo in the last post. I see that the blue tones are not as evident in the dress and shirt. Good job Leo. Well done. The only thing I did different as opposed to my directions first posted is going to "replace colour" and toning down the skin tones.

[PacAce]

Originally Posted by Conk

I must have been posting at the same time as Leo in the last post. I see that the blue tones are not as evident in the dress and shirt. Good job Leo. Well done. The only thing I did different as opposed to my directions first posted is going to "replace colour" and toning down the skin tones.

You did a good job yourself, Conk. As with anything, there are many ways to "skin a cat" (don't mean you literally, though ) and we've just come up with two of them.

[Conk]

Originally Posted by PacAce

there are many ways to "skin a cat" (don't mean you literally, though )

[LexLuther]

PacAce and Conk, you will never know just how thankful I am for your efforts. PacAce, I can't believe you took all that time to help me out with my problem. I've been out all day looking at picture frames so I apologize for not being able to get you a photo with some natural skin tones in it.

http://lexluther.shackspace.com/imag...can-Colors.jpg

This is a picture from my Rebel that seems like it got the exposure right. I don't have any idea why no flash was being used. As I've said, I basically handed my camera to a bystander and told them to take my wedding photo's. Ah well, what can ya do. No regrets.

I'm gonna get to work on learning this technique. I had gone through the tutorial offered here..

http://www.prodigitalimage.com/tips/...004/index.html

but it didn't seem to quite do the trick. I would always end up with really red skin tones.

[PacAce]

Originally Posted by LexLuther

PacAce and Conk, you will never know just how thankful I am for your efforts. PacAce, I can't believe you took all that time to help me out with my problem. I've been out all day looking at picture frames so I apologize for not being able to get you a photo with some natural skin tones in it.

http://lexluther.shackspace.com/imag...can-Colors.jpg

This is a picture from my Rebel that seems like it got the exposure right. I don't have any idea why no flash was being used. As I've said, I basically handed my camera to a bystander and told them to take my wedding photo's. Ah well, what can ya do. No regrets.

I'm gonna get to work on learning this technique. I had gone through the tutorial offered here..

http://www.prodigitalimage.com/tips/...004/index.html

but it didn't seem to quite do the trick. I would always end up with really red skin tones.

LexLuther, the reason the tutorial you referenced above wasn't working for you is because if you follow it you end up making a global color correction to your image. However, in your case, the color cast was not applied globally as explained in my tutorial. I think my tutorial should work fine for you. But you might want to rework Step 24 so that the red is not desaturated as much as I initially did.

Good luck and if you have any questions let me know.

[Scottes]

Sweet job, Leo. Very nice.